Monday, December 31, 2012

Happy New Year everyone, and welcome back to another wonderful year full of creative inspiration with The Robin's Nest. I hope your holiday was absolutely fabulous, and I trust that life is slowing down a bit for you after the hustle and bustle of the holidays.

Now, for some exciting news. The Robin's Nest has put together some fantastic card kits and tag kits, and they are on sale the entire month of January. Just use the code: cardkitpromo for a 20% savings. We are also teaming up with Heartfelt Creations this month. So, my first card for this year is a beautiful wintery blue card made using products from both the Baby Boy card kit and the Winter tag kit. I also made some really pretty snowflakes using the the Tattered Blossoms Pre-Cut stamp set and matching dies from Heartfelt Creations.

I am always looking for different, and sometimes unconventional, ways to make cards. This is a single panel card (i.e., not folded in half) that has been inserted into the envelope. The envelope is an integral part of the card, and not just something used to mail it. I love dimension, and this card has it.

First, fold the envelope flap to the inside and glue down.

Cover the envelope, front and back, as shown, using the Irredescent Blue Glitter Blue Swirl on Blue cardstock from the card kit. I inked the paper with Seedless Preserves distress ink, which made the glittery flourishes pop. The excess triangle piece was used on the flap.

Ink the edges of one of the embossed panel cards from the kit using Seedless Preserves and a bit of Stormy Sky distress ink. Stamp the smallest Heartfelt Creations Tattered Blossom stamp around the edges using Seedless Preserves.

Use a Spellbinders lacy rectangular die to cut the Jean Cardstock, ink edges with white pigment ink, and emboss with white embossing powder. I allowed some of the blue to show through for a more shabby chic (or frosty) look. Adhere to center of embossed panel.

I wanted to use these for snowflakes, and no one likes yellow snow, so I inked each one with white pigment ink and embossed with white embossing powder. (NOTE: Any color cardstock could be used for this part). I added a bit of Seedless Preserves distress ink to each one and re-heated, which gave a bit of a purple look to the snowflakes. The two smaller snowflakes were attached to the card, as shown, and the other two were attached to the envelope holder. Silver dew drops from the Fairy Dust Dew Drops collection were glued to the centers.

Reverse side of envelope

As I said, this card does not fold in half. It is a single panel, and the sentiment would be added to the reverse side. This is where the Robin's Nest glittered journal cards come in handy. As you can see, I used the journal card on the reverse of my card to add either my handwritten or stamped sentiment. I prefer to leave the sentiment off of my cards until I am ready to send. That way, I can use it for whatever occasion arises. If you wanted to mail this, it would have to be put into a larger envelope. However, this is a wonderful card for presenting in person. It is quite substantial feeling, and is sure to please any recipient.

Fussy-cut journal card and attach to reverse of panel card

Well, I hope you have enjoyed my project today and will stop by The Robin's Nest online store to see all of the new products and kits they have added, and check out their new line of card and tag kits on sale this month. What a great opportunity to stock up on those most-wanted papers and embellishments. Also, check their blog regularly to see what the new design team creates for you. I also encourage you to visit Heartfelt Creations to view their products, as well.

Sunday, December 16, 2012

Hello everyone, and welcome back. I know it is almost Christmas, but I have a really quick and easy last-minute project for you using some wonderful products from The Robin's Nest. Honestly, it took me longer to come up with the idea than it did to make it. But I sure do like how it turned out. I am a big-time animal lover, and birds are definitely at the top of my list. So, I am very pleased to show you this really cute ornament to either hang on your tree, or give to a friend. It could even be attached to a gift with some pretty ribbon.

After adhering the paper/chipboard pieces together, I then glued the entire circular piece to the inside bottom of the can.

I cut two strips of White Glitter Swirl on White card stock 12" long by 1-1/4" wide, and ran each through my paper corrugator. One strip was glued to the inside of the can. I love how it gave a bit of dimension, texture, and interest.

Before gluing the second corrugated strip to the outside of the can, I used a bit of gold gilder's paste to color the top and bottom edges of the can. This will make your life easier because you do not have to try to cover every square inch of the can. I think it

makes it quite beautiful, don't you?

Gold gilder's paste applied to top and bottom edges

Now, you can glue the second strip to the outside, and because the ornament will be seen from both sides, you want to make sure you finish the bottom of the can. This picture depicts the finished bottom and sides, again using that gorgeous White Glitter Swirl on White card stock.

Bottom (or back) of ornament

I added the Velvet Ribbon, layered with the Fall Ribbon, around the sides of the can. I punched a hole in the top of the can and thread a piece of wire through to hold a hanging ribbon. Then, I punched a few holly leaves from the Olive Fleur card stock, placing them around the wire with some Chocolate Cherry Dew Drops to hide the wire. After adhering a few Mocha Trail Dew Drops and snowflakes to the inside back, I glued some moss and the Cardinal to the inside bottom.

Side of can

And here is the ornament shown hanging from my little Christmas tree. How festive is that?

I hope you have enjoyed my project this week, and thanks so much for stopping by. I trust you have been inspired by the beautiful products from The Robin's Nest, and I encourage you to visit their online store to see all of their new products, as well as gain lots of creative inspiration from all of the talented designers on The Robin's Nest blog.

I will be back again next year creating cards to share and inspire you. In the meantime, I want to wish each and every one a very merry Christmas and a wonderful, peaceful, and prosperous New Year.

Friday, December 14, 2012

I am so very excited to announce that I was selected to serve another term as a member of the Robin's Nest design team for the next six months. We have changed things up a bit here at RN, so now there are four different teams: Altered Art Sunday TeamInternational Monday TeamCards Tuesday and Thursday TeamLayout Wednesday and Saturday TeamI will be designing cards for the next six months. I cannot express how honored I am to be chosen and to be able to share my card art with you, along with the other talented artists on the various teams.

The Robin's Nest carries beautiful papers, Dew Drops, kits, and many other fabulous embellishments that I know you will just have to have, so visit the Robin's Nestonline store for all of your paper crafting needs. I encourage you to check back here regularly, as well as The Chattering Robins blog, to visit the design team's monthly submissions for some great ideas.

I hope to inspire your creativity over the next six months, and I thank you, with all my heart, for stopping by.

Today I have the great pleasure of announcing the winner of my blog candy from Leslierahye's Very Merry Steampunk Blog Hop held last weekend, on 8 December. Good old random.org chose number 7, and by my humble calculations, the winner is

CAMILLE SHORT

Congratulations, Camille. I just need your vital statistics (aka, an address to mail this to you) and your goodies will be on their "very merry" way.

Here is what Camille won.

Thanks so much to all of you who stopped by to join us on this fun adventure. Your participation and support means so much to me. I always appreciate hearing your comments, and I am so grateful for my followers. You make it all so worthwhile, and I hope you will come back to visit me often.

I want to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and have a safe, fun, and absolutely wonderful holiday!

Saturday, December 8, 2012

Hello fellow steampunk lovers, and welcome back to another fun blog hop, hosted by the wonderfully talented Leslierahye, and including some fantastically creative designers who want to share their holiday steampunk creations with you. So grab a cuppa and a snack, sit back and relax, and enjoy the magic of the holidays with a steampunk theme. But first, I want to keep you on track, so you should have arrived here from Michelle Frae Cummings' blog. A complete list of each blog participant is also listed at the bottom of this post, in case you get lost. You can start the hop at Leslierahye's blog here. I also want to remind you that some of us are giving away some blog candy, and all you need to do to enter to win is leave a really nice comment, and please become a follower of each of our blogs. It really makes us happy!!!

Now, for my piece, I created this cute little steampunky snowman. Tim Holtz would be proud to see that I used practically all of his ideology parts for this piece... well, almost all.

I first painted a wooden snowflake with a silver paint dabber, producing as much texture as I could with a dabbing motion. I used three different sized clock faces for his body, a fancy keyhole escutcheon and mini jingle bell on the bottom clock face, a plastic snowflake and mini jingle bell on his belly, and for his face, I used a small length of ball chain (mouth), a spinner painted orange (nose) and two mini jingle bells (eyes). Keys were used for his arms.

For his hat, I drew a simple top hat shape on a piece of chipboard, covered with a piece of black metal, and cut it out. Covered the hat piece with another keyhole escutcheon attached with two brads. Doesn't he have a cute face?

For the hanger, I used a piece of ball chain that I thread through each end of an enamel plaque (25) and glued the plaque to the snowflake.

I really love how this cute guy turned out. And now, I have a little blog candy to give away to one lucky winner, chosen at random, if you leave me a comment and become a follower. Also, be sure to leave me your e-mail address or some way to contact you. Here is what you could win:

I will announce the winner right here next Friday, December 14th, so check back then.

I hope you are enjoying the hop so far, and please be sure to visit each blog for lots of fun and tons of steampunky holiday inspiration. You next stop is Regena Florenti's blog, and I am positive she has something fantastic to share with you.

Thanks for stopping by, and good luck to all. Have a very happy holiday, and a very Merry Christmas!!!

Sunday, December 2, 2012

Hello everyone. Welcome back to my blog, and my new design team project for The Robin's Nest. Today, I have a fairly easy project for you, in light of the busy holiday season and the "need for speed". We all know someone whom we just do not have the slightest idea what to give them, so what better way to present a gift card than to give them a beautifully hand-decorated tin made by you, especially for them.

I covered the inside using the Red Glitter on Red Cardstock. NOTE: You can spread a thin line of matching color acrylic paint around the circumference of the tin top and bottom before adhering your cardstock. This will disguise any paper layer not cut to exact measurements. See photo below.

Thin line of red acrylic paint around inside edge

To make the stand-up for the gift card, simply cut a piece of Getaway Glitter Leaves on linen cardstock to 3-3/8" x 5-1/2", then score at 5/8", 2-3/8", and 5". You may need to round the corners to allow it to fit properly inside the tin. See photo below.

Gift card insert

Place a piece of double sided adhesive at the 5" score line area and attach. You will have an angled piece to showcase your gift card. See photo below.

I glued the branches to the inside of the lid, then attached the ornaments with foam dots for dimension, draping the Fall Ribbon through the ornaments. I also used a gold pen to color the topper on each ornament.

Inside tin with gift card insert

Inside tin with gift card presentation

I hope you like my project for a pretty way to present your gift cards this Christmas, or change up the papers and embellishments to use for any time of year. Thanks so much for stopping by, and please be sure to visit The Robin's Nest online store to see all of their new and wonderful products. I would also encourage you to stop by the Chattering Robins blog for more creative inspiration from the rest of the design team. They always have something wonderful to share.

Saturday, December 1, 2012

Hello everyone, and welcome back. Today, I have the great pleasure of announcing the winner of my blog candy from last week's All Things Altered Winter Blog Hop. I selected a winner randomly using random.org, who chose #23, and that is:KAREN LADD

This fabulous mailbox is magical! Loving the colors you used and all that sparkly elegance!

Congratulations, Karen. I just need your address so I can send your goodies out to you. You can e-mail me at Threads18@aol.com.

I also want to take this opportunity to thank each and every one of you for visiting and following my blog. I will strive to always share something interesting and inspiring with you, and I hope you will come back often. Thank you so much for your support. It really means a lot to me.

Thursday, November 29, 2012

Hello everyone. I cannot believe that November is almost over, and I am submitting this piece just under the wire. I guess it is better late than never, so here goes.

The nice folks over at Altered Pages have a monthly challenge for anyone to enter, and this month, the theme is RUST. Well, I never would have thought I would be the kind of gal who would like rust, but it has been shown beautifully by so many talented artists over the years that it has definitely grown on me, and I am loving the color. It is a favorite of mine, especially this time of year. It truly speaks Fall to me.

I used a bare paper mache box and spray painted it with a brown textured paint. Then, I spread a thin coat of Artist Spackle through the bird on a branch stencil. After the spackle dried, I coated the image with Duo Adhesive and, when that dried to a tacky finish, applied Leafing in variegated colors.

The box was too brown for my rusted taste, so I must admit, I played around with different mediums until I got it where I liked it. What's my "recipe"? Goodness knows. I will tell you that I first added a rusty brown chalk ink, some redder distress inks, and still not quite achieving the colors I wanted. Then it hit me. I had some Rust Gilder's Paste in my stash, and voila! I applied it with my favorite tool (my finger) around the raised banding on the side of the box, as well as around the background. But now, my leafing was getting lost in that color. So I returned to using my distress ink in Black Soot to darken the color around the gilded image, and now I am very happy at the result.

I hope you like my project, and will be inspired to try some of those other mediums you have in your own stash. And please check out the Altered Pages Blog to see what their wonderfully talented designers have created using the color RUST. And they also have wonderful products, collage sheets, and even kits in their online store. Go check them out. You will not be disappointed.

Friday, November 23, 2012

Hello everyone. I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving, and welcome back to another edition of the All Things Altered Winter Blog Hop. Our wonderful hostess, Pam Bray, of Scrapbook Flair, is having a really nice giveaway, so be sure to start there. If you arrived here from Jess B's blog, then you are on track. I am so excited to be able to play along, once again, with such a fabulous bunch of wonderfully-talented designers. I know you will have a good time visiting each blog and be inspired by their creativity.

When I think of winter, I think of cooler, grayish-white and mostly colorless days. So, to take the "blues" away, I made this cute little winter mailbox using papers from Little Yellow Bicycle's (LYB) new collection, Winterings, and My Mind's Eye (MME) Signature Christmas collection. The MME are specialty papers with bits of glitter scattered throughout.

I started with this bare paper mache mailbox, and covered it inside and out with the LYB Winterings papers. I used my Xyron 850 to add the edge-to-edge adhesive to each of my papers, making it quite easy to adhere the papers to the box. I did not like the grayish-blue color as much as I thought I would, so I inked it up with Bundled Sage and Brushed Corduroy Distress Inks. This made it match the MME papers more and tie everything together. I love the vintage feel of this piece.

I used a Tim Holtz Sizzix tattered pinecone die to make the pinecone arrangement on top of the mailbox. I added beaded embellishments, which I think really added that special bling.

I edged the box with Stickles Icycles glitter glue, added pre-made flowers from Michaels, a decorative border made with a Martha Stewart punch, and added thin strips of the same paper that I used on the mailbox flag to tie it together.

Decorative paper strips with punched edging

Michael's flowers, beaded bling

On the side opposite the flag, I fussy cut a reindeer and adhered it over a piece of distressed music sheet paper that I also distressed with Brushed Corduroy.

I stamped Christmas images onto scraps of the printed papers, distressed the edges, and turned them into postcards for my mailbox.

Postcards front

Postcards back

I am so pleased with the way this turned out. I hope you enjoyed my project as much as I enjoyed making it to share with you. As a special thank you,I have a bit of blog candy to give away. To enter, please leave a comment and follow my blog, if you don't already. Simple, right? It would also be super if you could do the same on each of the other blogs as well. Here is what you could win.

I will pick a winner at random and announce my winner right here on Saturday, December 1st. So you have a week to enter. Good luck.

Thursday, November 22, 2012

Hello everyone. I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving, and welcome to Festive Friday's link up blog hop. Terri Sproul has invited everyone who wants to come and play along by making a Christmas card and linking up to their hop. Click on the link above to start hopping. But since your are here now, this is my Christmas card.

I fussy cut Santa's bag, dry embossed it to make it poof out, and layered it over the original stamped image with foam dots. It is subtle in the picture, but I think you get the idea. After all, I love adding dimension. I also added foam dots to the entire Santa image as well.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and be sure to visit all of the other blogs to see what beautiful cards they have come up with.